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Irving Penn

Past
Nov 3 – Nov 27, 2022
Palm Beach
 
Exhibition Details:

Irving Penn
Nov 3 – 27, 2022

Gallery:

The Royal Poinciana Plaza
340 Royal Poinciana Way
Suite M333
Palm Beach

Connect:

(opens in a new window) @the.irving.penn.foundation
(opens in a new window) @pacegallery

Above: Irving Penn, Balenciaga Rose Dress, Paris, 1967 © Condé Nast

Kicking off Pace’s third season in Palm Beach is an exhibition of 19 works created by Irving Penn between 1939 and 1996.

Running from November 3 to 27, this show will trace Penn’s indelible mark on the history of photography, highlighting his 70-year tenure as a fashion photographer for Vogue. Featuring photographs in black-and-white and color, the presentation will shed light on the evolution of Penn’s image-making practice, bringing together a selection of the artist’s iconic fashion photographs as well as his surreal, dreamlike color images of flowers, fruit, and other subjects.

Among the highlights in the presentation is the 1949 work Girl Behind Bottle, which Penn made by way of his complex technique for platinum-palladium prints, one of his many innovations in the darkroom. This photograph shows a silhouette partially distorted as it is reflected through a glass bottle, exemplifying Penn’s skillful direction of the gaze through lighting, internal frames, and different blurring and fragmenting methods.

A gelatin silver print in the exhibition, titled Balenciaga Rose Dress (1967), reflects the artist’s ability to forge resonant images that transcend the pages of magazines to the walls of museums and galleries. In this work, Penn captures the billowing, contoured forms of an ornate gown. Also included in the show is the 1995 dye transfer print Bee on Lips, a color image that speaks to the artist’s defamiliarizations of the everyday through juxtapositions, unusual poses, and plays of scale. Depicting a bee atop a woman’s closed mouth, painted in a vibrant poppy lipstick, this work possesses a surreal, ineffable quality unique to Penn’s oeuvre.

On the occasion of this exhibition, Pace will collaborate with the Norton Museum of Art to present a conversation about fashion photography between Barbara London, former curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and founder of MoMA's video program, and Stefano Tonchi, ICP Board Member and PALMER Editorial Director.

 

Featured Works

Irving Penn, Woman in Chicken Hat (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn) (A), New York, 1949, platinum palladium print mounted to aluminum, 19-3/4" × 18-5/8" (50.2 cm × 47.3 cm), image 24-7/8" × 22" (63.2 cm × 55.9 cm), paper 26" × 22" (66 cm × 55.9 cm), mount
Irving Penn, Kate Moss, New York, 1996, platinum palladium print mounted to aluminum, 16-3/4" × 16-3/4" (42.5 cm × 42.5 cm), image 21-7/8" × 18-9/16" (55.6 cm × 47.1 cm), paper and mount
Irving Penn, Bee on Lips, New York, 1995, dye transfer print, 15-7/8" × 22-1/2" (40.3 cm × 57.2 cm), image 19-1/4" × 23-1/4" (48.9 cm × 59.1 cm), paper
Irving Penn, Pear with Seeds (A), New York, 1993, platinum palladium print mounted to aluminum, 11-3/8" × 19-1/4" (28.9 cm × 48.9 cm), image 15-7/8" × 23-5/8" (40.3 cm × 60 cm), paper and mount
Irving Penn, Poppy: Barr's White, New York, 1968, pigment print mounted to board, 19-1/2" × 17-1/2" (49.5 cm × 44.5 cm), image, paper and mount 25" × 23-1/2" (63.5 cm × 59.7 cm), frame
Irving Penn, Summer Sleep, New York, 1949, dye transfer print, 15-7/8" × 22-3/8" (40.3 cm × 56.8 cm), image 20" × 23-7/8" (50.8 cm × 60.6 cm), paper
 

Installation Views

 
Penn.jpg

Irving Penn

Irving Penn photographed for Vogue and commercial clients in America and abroad for nearly 70 years. Whether an innovative fashion image, striking portrait, or compelling still life, each of Penn’s pictures bears his trademark style of elegant aesthetic simplicity.

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